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Dessert

Fruit Cake with Buttermilk

A moist fruit cake made with raisins, currants, walnuts, citron, spices, buttermilk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Cake with Buttermilk

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the buttermilk, then add the baking soda, salt, and spices.

  5. Gradually mix in the flour until just combined.

  6. Fold in the raisins, currants, walnuts, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased bread tins.

  2. Bake for 1¼ hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that tenderizes the crumb and reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Mixing in the flour. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the fruit cake tough and dense. Mix only until the flour is just combined.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, walnut, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, egg, sugar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, walnut, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

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